Do you agree? further comments and another question

[Jules Levin]

Thanks to all who responded.
I should have been clearer that Polish was irrelevant-- the Polish was 
introduced by the answerer whose
response I was questioning, but no Russian Empire passport would have 
been written in Polish, esp. after the 1860's,
when Polish was replaced by Russian for official records in Congress Poland.

The person who sent in the original question may not have the original 
passport; in any case, it is her question we must
deal with.  She apparently correctly recognized the line regarding 
military service, so absent other evidence, it is likely
that she understood correctly the "residence" line, rather than 
mistaking some question about class for a question about residence.
Especially since every passport would have a town location.

Paul G. actually found a location by searching "???? ?????????", but I 
realized that to do that search properly, one must search with 'yat's' 
and not 'e', since the town could have ceased to exist after 1918, 
especially with that name.  That leads to my new question.
I have Cyrillic installed in my Word 2010, but when I went to symbols to 
insert a yat', I was shocked to discover how inferior the symbol sets 
are compared to earlier versions.   I could find NO cyrillic alphabets 
in any font, much less pre-1917 letters.  Yet one more disappointment in 
the march of progress...
Jules Levin


On Oct 5, 2011, at 3:16 PM, Jules Levin wrote:

On another list I belong to, dealing with genealogy, someone sent in the 
following question:

     My grandmother's 1912 passport shows that her father enlisted in 
the army
     (Polish or Russian) in the town of Meshanskoye.

One of the best researchers, and doubtless a native speaker of Polish 
and/or Russian, responding:

     There appear to be a bit of a confusion.
     Meshchanskoye identifies the social status of a "town dweller"in 
the Russian
     Empire, not a town name.  Word has originated from Polish 
"mieszczanin"

Aside from the etymology, what would have been the line on a passport 
that would get the adjective with a neuter ending?
My impression is that such questions would be answered by a noun--e.g., 
"meshchanin", etc., or if not, why not the masculine
adjective (or fem. for a woman)?
This is also intriguing because the neuter ending IS found with town names.

Comments?  Thoughts?

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